Never Deceive a Duke (25 page)

But whose needs did that serve? His, and only his. A return to society was precisely what Antonia deserved. She had every right to reach out for the life she wanted, not simply settle for the life which was at hand. And if, by some miracle, he and Kemble could lay to rest any of the doubt surrounding Warneham’s death, her path to her new life would be even smoother.

But she was still looking at him and awaiting his answer to her question. “No, I just wandered in,” he lied. “Everything is fine. I was just looking…for something.”

“Whilst carrying your hat?” She leapt to her feet and lightly kissed his cheek. “Come now, Gabriel. I thought we were to be honest with one another?”

“Yes, we did say that, didn’t we?” He gave a muted smile. “Actually, I was going to ask if you would go for a walk with me.”

“I should love to,” she answered. “May I have a moment to change my shoes?”

“Antonia.” He caught her lightly by the arm. “You need not go.”

She set her head to one side and studied him. “Perhaps I want to. Where are you going?”

He dropped his gaze. He felt suddenly twelve again. “To the pavilion in the deer park,” he said. “But I just…didn’t really want to go alone.”

“I should be pleased to go. I love the pavilion.” She gave his hand one last reassuring squeeze and started toward the door. “I will meet you in the great hall.”

A few minutes later, Gareth watched her come dashing back down the stairs. She wore a somewhat loose, old-fashioned gown of sprigged muslin in a fetching shade of green with a matching green-and-yellow shawl tossed over her shoulders. “I decided to wear something colorful and comfortable,” she said, her eyes sparkling. “And—well, it was the only thing I could quickly get on without Nellie’s help. Oh, what do you have in the basket?”

Gareth smiled and lifted his arm. “A cold luncheon, I’m told,” he said. “Mrs. Musbury thinks I am skipping my midday meal too often.”

Antonia laughed. “A picnic!” she said. “How lovely.”

They went out through the conservatory into the back gardens, her hand resting lightly upon his arm. The air today was touched with a hint of autumn, and if one looked quite closely, a flash of red or gold could sometimes be seen in the lush foliage of the orchard which bordered Selsdon’s formal gardens. The orchard gave onto a swath of woodland, and below it lay the deer park.

The road which led down to the deer park was easy to find and, like the road to Knollwood, well kept. “I used to walk this way often as a child,” he said. “The pavilion was Cyril’s favorite place to play. We would pretend it was our castle and stage mock battles to defend it. Or sometimes we would treat it as a sort of amphitheater and act out one of Shakespeare’s plays—not
Romeo and Juliet,
mind. One of the more bloodthirsty ones.”

She looked up at him and smiled. “I found this little lane on my own,” she said. “Warneham never mentioned it. I suppose it is just as well, for it gave me a place to hide myself away occasionally.”

They strolled in silence for some time, her hand lying lightly on his arm. The path narrowed as it descended, and the foliage grew more untamed. It was beautiful, but a little haunting as the wood enfolded them, shutting out the sky. Gareth looked up and thought of little Beatrice. From time to time, Antonia too glanced up into the canopy of green, but she said little.

“Are you thinking of Beatrice?” he finally asked. “I mention it because…well, I suppose I am.”

She looked at him with a soft smile. “Always,” she said quietly. “She is never far from my mind or my heart, Gareth. But I think perhaps—oh, I don’t know—I still feel the loss so deeply. I still feel at fault. The grief is ever present, but I have begun to hope that perhaps one day I might understand. I must accept, someday, that nothing I can say or do—no amount of prayer or penance—will ever bring my babies back. What would you call that? Resignation?”

“Wisdom,” he answered. “I would call it wisdom, Antonia. And a giving in to the ways of God.”

“Yes, perhaps that is it,” she murmured, giving his arm a little squeeze. “Perhaps I am surrendering unto God that which was always his.”

“Yes, but that part, Antonia, about feeling at fault,” he continued. “That part, I hope, you will carefully consider as you go forward with this next part of your life. You cannot hold yourself responsible for…for the actions of a capricious, narcissistic ass.”

“Oh, my!” she murmured appreciatively. “I never heard Eric described better.”

Gareth managed to smile down at her. They walked on in silence for a moment, but finally Antonia spoke. “Tell me more about mourning,” she said. “Jewish mourning, I mean.”

Gareth was not sure how to explain it. His impressions were those of a child. “Well, after the funeral, the family goes home to meditate on the life of the departed, and to pray for them,” he said. “This is done for seven days, and it is supposed to be a period of intense grief.”

“
Seven
days?”

“Yes, and in that time, one does not leave one’s home,” he went on. “Visitors may call upon the bereaved to pray and to talk about the departed, but that is all. Mourners may eat only very simple foods. They cannot enjoy any luxury, such as a leisurely bath or even the wearing of shoes. We cover our mirrors, and we take the cushions off the chairs. We may not work, nor even think of work, and we light a special candle of remembrance. It is a time to begin to heal ourselves, and sanctify the memory of the one who is lost to us.”

He glanced down to see Antonia looking at him in wonder. He realized that somewhere in his narrative he had gone from “they” to “we.” It was characteristic of his life, perhaps. The chronic confusion of never knowing just where one belonged.

“It almost sounds like a luxury to me.” Antonia’s voice was low and raw with emotion. “To be encouraged in one’s grief…I cannot imagine it.”

“When I was a boy, I thought sitting shiva very dull,” Gareth confessed. “But now that I am older, I wonder if it isn’t very wise indeed. Yes, it is a sort of luxury. In a shiva house, it is thought wrong to try to cajole the bereaved from their grief, or to distract them from thinking of their loss.”

“You are surprisingly knowledgeable, Gabriel, for one who did not worship in the faith.”

They had started down the hill which led to the pavilion and the small lake beyond. Gareth found himself growing unaccountably tense. “Everyone I knew, Antonia, was a Jew,” he said quietly. “As a small boy, I had seen no other way. And yet I was kept from
being
a Jew. I know my mother meant well, but—”

“Oh, Gabriel, I am quite sure of it.” Antonia stopped abruptly and turned to look at him. “She just never knew she would die so young. She never knew your father would not come home again. How well I understand that a mother cannot foresee and prepare her child for life’s every tragedy. You must not think ill of her. You mustn’t.”

Gareth nodded, and resumed their walking, but at a slower pace. He did not want to reach the foot of the hill. And he did not want, particularly, to carry on this conversation any further. There was a part of him that was still irrationally angry with his mother. He felt as if her choice had left him hanging, suspended between two worlds, and belonging to neither.

He kicked a rotting walnut from the path and felt mild satisfaction when it cracked solidly against a tree. “I know, Antonia, that everything my mother did, she did out of love,” he said. “Love for me, and for my father. But to a small boy, there are few things more important than fitting in with the world around you—and few things more reassuring. And frankly, I think my grandparents’ faith was a grounding influence. I believe it would have done me a vast deal of good.”

“Do you believe what they believed?” There was no hint of judgment in her voice; merely curiosity.

“Some days, Antonia, I don’t know what I believe.” He paused to lift a wayward briar from Antonia’s path. “For me, this isn’t even about faith. It is about a nurturing community of good and honest people.”

She ducked under the briar, then glanced toward him with a faint smile. “Perhaps I understand better than you might imagine, Gabriel.”

Gareth looked up to see the pavilion through the trees up ahead. Beyond it lay the lake. He picked up their pace a little. He had come this far; it was best to get it over with.

The pavilion was round and entirely open. Eight Ionic columns of white stone supported the pavilion’s dome, and three white marble steps encircled its base. Once it had been furnished with chaises and chairs, but now it held nothing but a rough-hewn wooden bench and a swath of dead leaves.

Antonia sensed Gabriel’s hesitation well before they reached the end of the path. But when the pavilion came into view, he marched on like a soldier to battle. He did not give the impression of a man who had come to savor the outdoors and admire the greenery.

“It is lovely, isn’t it?” she said when he finally stopped to take in the view. “Lovely, but a bit ostentatious, I always thought.”

Gabriel did not answer. After a moment had passed, he picked up his pace again, and together they went up the steps. Gabriel put down Mrs. Musbury’s basket and drifted toward the opposite side of the circle. Antonia let her hand fall away from his arm, and for a moment, she simply watched him. There was a hesitance to his gait and a rigidity to his posture which was unusual. He had apparently left his hat behind at Selsdon, for his luxurious golden hair now tossed lightly in the breeze coming off the lake.

He went to the very edge of the pavilion and set one hand high against the nearest column. The other hand went to his hip, pushing back the front of his coat to reveal the slender turn of his waist. Gabriel stared out across the water, in the direction of what had once been a boathouse but was now just a pile of rotting timber, which was slowly sliding into the lake and taking its sagging roof along with it.

Gabriel was thinking, she knew, of his cousin Cyril’s death. It was here that Warneham’s son and heir had died during a family picnic—at least that was the story Nellie had got belowstairs. Antonia’s husband had never spoken of it, save to say that Gabriel had done it deliberately, out of jealousy and spite. Knowing him as she did now, however, she knew that was not remotely possible. Despite his cold, formal edges, the man had a heart that was kind, perhaps to a fault.

Since his arrival at Selsdon, Gabriel had been exceptionally good to her, when he had no reason whatever to trouble himself and when many in his shoes might have been bitter. He had accepted almost unquestioningly her protestations of innocence surrounding Warneham’s death. He had come to Selsdon with his heart newly broken, his lover newly wed, and thrust into a position she was now convinced he had not wanted, but he had still opened at least a little piece of his heart to her. He could not love her, perhaps, in the way she might wish when she let her silly, girlish fantasies run free, but he cared for her. And yes, he wanted her, too—but it was a desire, she believed, which had arisen from his tenderness and his concern.

The least she could do was repay him in kind. Slowly, she walked through the dead leaves which littered the marble floor. She hardly knew what to say. Gabriel had obviously come here for a reason, and she must trust he would deal with it in his own way, and in his own time.

He apparently heard her approach, for he turned, one hand still on the column, and extended his arm as if to invite her to his side. Antonia smiled and joined him. Gabriel set his arm about her waist, and his warm, heavy hand came to rest lightly on her hip.

“The lake is beautiful, isn’t it?” she murmured. “Like glass, almost. One can see the reflection of the clouds, and the low-hanging branches along the edge.”

When he said nothing, she went on. “When I first came to Selsdon, I used to walk down here alone,” she said. “It was a sort of escape for me, I suppose. I used to imagine just walking into the water—that beautiful, pure, glasslike water—and…simply disappearing into it. Becoming one with it, in some elemental way. And leaving my troubles behind.”

His hand, which had rested so lightly upon her hip, tightened. “You mustn’t say such things.” His voice was suddenly taut with emotion. “That is like wishing yourself dead, Antonia. You must not ever think such a thing again.”

She shook her head. “No, no, it was not like that, Gabriel,” she vowed. “I never…thought of it as death. I thought of it as just—I don’t know—escaping, I suppose? I apologize. I can’t think why I brought it up.”

“You were not thinking clearly, Antonia, if you had such fancies,” he returned.

“No, I daresay I wasn’t.”

He turned and pierced her with his gaze. “You must promise me that if you ever do so again, you will tell me at once.”

“Tell you?”

“Yes,” he said firmly. Then his voice hitched. “Or…someone. Nellie. Your brother. Promise me, Antonia.” He sounded unaccountably angry.

“Yes, I promise,” she said. “I am sorry, Gabriel. I did not mean to frighten you.”

He withdrew into himself again. She could see it in the way his eyes grew distant and a little glassy. Uncertain what to do, she went to the bench and swept it off. But she did not sit down. Instead, acting on instinct, she returned to him and set her hand at the small of his back.

He turned at once to look at her, awareness returning to his gaze.

“Gabriel,” she said quietly. “Do you wish to tell me about it? About Cyril’s death?”

He shook his head.

For an instant, Antonia hesitated to interfere. She knew what it was like to be poked and prodded by the annoyingly well-intentioned. “Well, I think you should,” she finally said, hoping her voice sounded decisive. “After all, you brought me down here for a reason, did you not? It cannot have been simply to admire the scenery.”

For a long, heavy moment, Gabriel did not speak. “Are you really going away, Antonia?” he asked, his voice a little hoarse.

She hesitated. “I wish only to do what is best for us both,” she answered. “I don’t wish to be a burden to you. I have a family. I…I have people who care for me, in their own way. What do you want me to say, Gabriel? Tell me, and I shall say it.”